King Lear, Answer to Job: The Archetypes of Godhead

What if Shakespeare's darkest tragedy holds the key to understanding Western consciousness itself? In this riveting conversation, Shakespearean scholar and Jungian theorist James Driscoll reveals how King Lear and Jung's Answer to Job chart the same extraordinary journey—the transformation of the God-image from unconscious tyrant to suffering servant to defiant rebel. Through Lear's descent into madness and nothingness, we witness what Driscoll calls "the crucifixion of the ego," where pride strips away to reveal authentic self-knowledge and compassion.

This episode explores how evil, suffering, and injustice paradoxically become instruments of consciousness itself. Driscoll argues that King Lear presents the four archetypes of the Western Godhead—Yahweh, Christ, Prometheus, and the feminine Sophia—more powerfully than any work in literature. From his background as an AIDS activist who fought pharmaceutical injustice to his profound readings of visionary art, Driscoll demonstrates why understanding things "feelingly" rather than merely intellectually is essential to wholeness. A challenging, profound meditation on how we discover truth about ourselves only by confronting our nothingness.

Timestamps

00:01 Introduction to Jungian Perspectives

02:09 Today's guest, James Driscoll

07:40 Shakespeare as a visionary artist

12:59 A summary of King Lear

19:14 The Four Archetypes of the Western Judeo-Christian Godhead

29:06 The role of evil in the transformation process

33:49 The theme of “nothing”

40:41 Suffering and Madness

49:06 Our emotional need for justice within society

53:31 The Archetypal Patterns and Symbols behind Cordelia, Lear, and their Story

59:07 Outro to Jungian Perspectives